


Remembered.

by LunnVic



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Canonical Character Death, Corpses, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Neil is softer choosing words here because i can't talk shit like him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-13 09:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10510842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunnVic/pseuds/LunnVic
Summary: Ichirou Moriyama lets Neil Josten go.  But not so easily. He lets him go back to the last game with a clear deal: if the Ravens wins, Neil will be executed.But if the Foxes win, Neil will have to execute Riko and clean up his mess. He will be the person who cut losses everywhere, he will have to make dissappear people from Carolina to South Carolina. Cops, doctors, moles. Proust.And when Nathaniel Wesninski has done with this, then he will be free to be Neil Josten.Not a minute before.





	1. Riko Moriyama

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I posted a [thing](http://lunnvic.tumblr.com/post/157831801212/alternate-ending-for-tfc) in tumblr last month and people seemed to like it, so I did my best to turn it into a fanfic. 
> 
> I have to say that this was an amazing experience as English is not my native languaje (spanish is!) so this was half HORRIFYING and the other half was amazing because [@methaforicallytheworst](http://metaphoricallytheworst.tumblr.com/) offered to help me and -almost- to DECODE was I was trying to say in some sentences so: Hey! Thank you, Kit. Really thank you.
> 
> Also I have to say this is only going to be 3 chapters long so just enjoy your shot.

_Another endless silence followed. A day or week or year passed before Ichirou said, “Look me in the eye and listen very carefully”. Neil dragged his stare up to Ichirous’s face. Ichirou’s smile was long gone and his coal eyes seemed to bore right through Neil. “Where I come from, a man’s word is only as good as his name, and his name earns weight from the blood he has spilled for my family. You are untested and untrue. You are not worth the air you breathe. I would balance the red in my ledger with your death and consider it a fair repayment._

_“However,” Ichirou said, “you are your father’s son, and your father was someone to me. He is the reason I came down here myself when I could have sent anyone to speak to you. Do you know what I will do to you if I think you are wasting my time? Do you know what I will do to anyone you have ever met or spoken to? I will kill everyone who has ever stood by you and I will make each death last a lifetime.”_

 

[…]

 

“So you have to change.”

Neil didn’t understand, but he didn’t say a word, either. Ichirou looked at him like he was some experiment that could go extremely wrong and Neil looked down at his shoes, just waiting for his explanation.

“You will never be Neil Josten in my presence. That’s just a child’s game, and I will not consent to be fooled. You are only valuable to me if you are a Wesninski, and only that name will buy you your life. I do not care about Ravens and Foxes, I care that your uncle cost me my best man, and now I need a replacement.”

Neil closed his eyes, trying desperately not to lose it. Ichirou’s words were slowly melting inside his brain, finally making sense, and there was no way in which he could escape them. Ichirou was demanding from him the only thing he couldn’t give him. He wanted him to be Nathaniel Wesninski. He wanted him to spill blood in his name. Neil felt the nausea in his throat, but he managed to stay still.

“You sound really worried when talking about Riko’s behaviour, and even then you did nothing to stop him. You just played along, putting my family in danger. That is what I understood from your rambling”.

Neil saw the dead end alley in his head, but his mouth, used to lie, saved him:

“I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t have your approval, my lord.”

“Now you have it.”

Neil looked him in the eyes, trying to see beyond, trying to see if his words were the prelude to his death. Ichirou looked like he was at the same time enjoying the entire situation and beyond bored of it. He said something in Japanese to the man in the driver’s seat, and Neil suddenly felt really conscious of himself. About _being_ Neil Josten. And he realized that Ichirou’s verdict about him becoming Nathaniel Wesninki again could actually help Neil Josten to be saved. His heart started racing fast against his ribcage, trying to break free.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Here’s the deal,” and never had someone resembled an animal to him as much as Ichirou resembled a feline, dark and sibylline, “you are free to come back to your last game against the Ravens.”

That was not what he was expecting.

“If Riko is so out of control as you preach, you can demonstrate it by beating him with your Foxes. It should be easy now that he no longer has his men by his side, shouldn’t it?”

Neil nodded even if he didn’t agree with him.

“If the Ravens win you’ll demonstrate that your words were only lies to gain a few days more of your pointless life, and Riko will gain the favor to execute you. You won’t try to run away, because you know better. If you disappear, all your Foxes die first. The goalkeeper will be the last one to be ended, and you’ll be my guest and watch him die.”

Neil shivered, the nausea again rolling against his tongue. He wanted to puke, and he tried with all his strength to stop the images flashing in his mind. He had seen enough people dying to know exactly how Andrew’s body would react before getting cold and rigid. Ichirou wasn’t smiling. He was just exposing the facts.

“But if your Foxes win the match, that will make the first truth you’ve said to me. And, as a Wesninski, you must end my brother.”

“What?” he couldn’t control it: the panic, the disbelief.

“When a dog bites someone, you sacrifice him. This is no different.”

Neil held the silence after his words, slowly understanding what he was being asked to do. It was a “you were worried about him, right? Then take care of it if you dare.” He felt his body moving like a ghost when he nodded again, feeling like he was making a bargain with the devil.

“And then?”

Both of them knew what he meant. Neil wasn’t a fool. As Ichirou said, he knew better. Not even in his best dreams would a Moriyama let him free so easily, there should be more of it. More blood, more Nathaniel Wesninski. Well, he knew he wasn’t wrong when Ichirou smiled almost imperceptibly.

“Then you will clean up his mess. After all, Riko has been doing all of it because of you. You’ve been the reason he’s lost his control, and after you execute him, you will end every person that has ever obeyed an order from him in order to break you. Don’t you want revenge? Your father would love this.”

Neil opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind in the last moment. Ichirou was watching him closely, waiting for a word, a movement, that could make him untrustworthy. He was waiting for him to fail, because he knew he was just a child wanting to run from who he was meant to be, and asking him to be Nathaniel Wesninski was the most secure way to prove Neil Josten. He tried to think of another solution, but he had already offered him money, and he wanted a trial.

But then… Proust. He felt the exact moment when his mind remembered him and put every piece together, because his mouth salivated like his father’s always did just before killing someone. Like he was tasting the finest of the flavors. He’d use Nathaniel Wesninski to help Neil Josten in his search for revenge. He’d use Nathaniel Wesninski to buy a future for Neil Josten. For once in his life, his two selves looked at each other and made a deal.

“The FBI knows who I am. It’s a risky move, my lord.” It was the last trick to try and change Ichirou’s mind, even if he knew he was already settled. “Maybe they might find you through me.

“Not through _you_ ,” he said. “Because you will not be Neil Josten while you serve me. You will be free to be Neil Josten when you finish cleaning my brother’s mess. Not a minute before.”

Neil ducked his head, feeling the weight of duty.

“And when you have finished, you’ll play Exy for my family and the eighty percent of your career will be donated to ours. It will remind you who you belong to. Of course, I expect similar compensation from Day and Moreau. And… if you fail to make the cut after graduation, the deal is forfeit and it won’t matter how many people you have killed in my name. You will be executed.”

Neil stayed still. He was more afraid to win the match and lose himself in the process of breaking free than he was of being executed by Riko’s hands. He felt cold and trapped. He felt uncovered.

“About the FBI, I expect you to do what you do best.”

Neil frowned, lost.

“Lying.”

 

Ichirou didn’t have to warn him about telling the details of their deal to the Foxes. He talked with Jean and Kevin about his future, but he kept to himself what he would have to do in order to get the same treatment as them.

Neil felt for the first time the guilt of lying.

“How does it feel to sell yourself out?” Andrew asked.

Neil heard himself rambling about freedom, about Exy, about the two of them. He knew exactly how Neil would react, because he was Neil. Not for long, though.

His lies were even more painful when he opened the package Andrew had pushed against his chest, finding a set of arm bands identical to his. He would not need them after the match, but he chose to wear them until then. He knew the sight of his scarred arms would be more than enough to make the people he was going to kill piss themselves, so it was almost stupid to hide the marks. And he definitely wouldn’t need them if he was dead.

“Everything all right?” Abby asked him, approaching him with a sad look in her eyes.

“Never been better,” he lied.

 

 

The days passed as if they were a gift, with a strange incident between Katelyn and Andrew, Kevin telling the truth about him and Coach Wymack and changing his tattoo to a chess piece (Neil shivered at that “Let Riko be King”), and discovering a few more bits about Andrew’s past. He was more insistent, more everything, now that he knew that, whatever happened against the Ravens, he would not be seeing Andrew in a long time.

“I’m not a pipe dream. I’m not going anywhere,” but he never wanted with such a fierce feeling a lie to be true.

He thanked each one of the kisses like they were gold against his mouth.

 

 

“Fight because you don’t know how to die quietly. Win because you don’t know how to lose.” Those words sounded like a death sentence.

 

 

At the match, the fact that Andrew had a plan to win against the Ravens made Neil suspicious about if he knew more than he had told him. However, Andrew still looked at him as if he were the most boring thing he had ever seen in his life, and Neil felt safe. Safe in a way that was ironic taking the situation into consideration. The last thing he wanted for Andrew was for him to know that Neil’s life depended on how many goals he could stop.

And when Kevin strode to half-court head high and left-handed, not only the crowd went wild. Neil looked at his hands like they were his ticket to paradise. Liquid fire melted inside his rib cage: he was going to live. With Andrew playing the most intensely he had ever seen him and with a left-handed Kevin at his side… he was going to live.

Riko’s smile was cold. Neil swallowed at the sight, so close, to the one that could be his butcher. Not that he hadn’t been before. Every scar made by his hand seemed to burn open again in his flesh.

“Where’s your number, Wesninski?”, he asked, venomous, pointing at his own cheek, where his tattooed **1** was a strange warning sign.

“Maybe I’ll cut one into your throat later.”

Riko laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh.

“We’ll see.”

 

 

_The buzzer went off again, and Neil’s heart stopped._

_The ringing in his ears wasn’t all him. His teammates were screaming, wordless war cries of disbelief and victory. Neil’s fingers shook so badly it was almost impossible to get the straps of his helmet undone, but finally he managed to throw his helmet off to one side. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and looked up at the scoreboard._

_Ten-nine, Foxes’ favor… Kevin had scored in the last two seconds of the game._

Kevin had saved his life.

Kevin had saved his life.

Kevin had killed Riko.

Neil wished he could smile, but it took all his strength just to look up at Riko. The Raven captain and Exy King was staring at the scoreboard like he expected it to change, but it wouldn’t. He could practically _feel_ how those numbers were destroying Riko’s brain, making him realise he was going to die. Riko dragged his gaze away from the board to look at Neil. His eyes, not so long before cold and full of pride, were now a storm of fierce fear. Empty shells of cockroaches.

Neil sucked in a deep breath that ripped him open on its way down. “It’s ironic how the first time you lose is the first time your life was on the line, huh? I’m going to enjoy cutting you open, you worthless piece of shit.”

Something that looked like a dead breath twisted his expression into something Neil would never forget. Because while Riko’s racquet went up over his head he knew, _he knew_ , that Riko never had the intention to die alone. If he was going to die, he would drag Neil with him to hell. He heard his name on Dan’s lips, but he had no energy to defend himself. He had defended himself all his life, but in that moment he felt totally helpless, and he hated Riko for making him feel like this in his last second alive.

The next thing he knew when he closed his eyes was that death didn’t sound like death. In fact, it sounded like bones being broken. He thought that maybe the sound was from his own bones, but when he opened his eyes and saw Andrew between him and a savage screaming Riko, he felt his own life scratching him from the inside. The life he was allowed to live… but only after ending him.

 _Neil lost sight of Riko when the Foxes swarmed him. Gloved fingers patted his head and shoulders, looking for any sign that he’d been hurt. Neil tuned out their frantic demands, more interested in listening to Riko’s endless, agonized screaming._ He wondered if he’d scream the same when he slaughtered him. He just couldn’t wait.

Dan called his name with a mixture of desperation and fear and Neil finally gave in.

“Hey,” he said. He was going to live. He would have to end people in his way to be free, but he was going to live. He couldn’t escape that thought. “We won.”

Dan held him with the strength of ten thousand tornadoes, and he felt safe, _and loved_.

“Yeah, Neil. We won!”

 

 

“Floor” and “Tower”. Those were the only two buttons inside the elevator he was dragged to after the match. He was afraid that they would also call Kevin to go with him, but they didn’t, and he felt a bit of relief. If he was going to execute Riko, or even if Ichirou changed his mind and killed Neil instead, he did not want Kevin to have a memory of that. He wanted him to remember only the freedom, the victory against his abusive past.

It already looked like a funeral, with his uncle by Ichirou’s side and Riko and Tetsuji sat on one of the couches. Neil stood halfway between the brothers and looked at Ichirou’s collar. A minute, an hour, a century passed while they looked at each other, but then the new Lord handed him a glove and one of his men brought him a handgun.

“It has to be in the temple,” Ichirou said, and Neil nodded while he pulled his hand into the dark glove and took the gun. It felt heavy and wrong in his hand, but he wouldn’t regret the decisions that had lead him to this moment.

“Ichirou,” and it was Riko’s voice, so choked with emotion Neil almost couldn’t understand him. He turned and crouched in front of the almost dead king, trying to keep his face neutral. He wouldn’t put on a show, and while Ichirou said his last words in Japanese to his uncle and his brother, Riko’s eyes were the eyes of a cornered animal, furious and savage.

“You can proceed now, Nathaniel.”

Riko met his eyes.

“We’ll meet in hell,” he roared without even separating his teeth.

“See you there.”

Neil pulled the trigger.

 

 

Telling the truth to the Foxes was in no way easier than killing Riko.

He hated to ruin his happiness with the news, and by the time he finished he felt like he was chewing shattered glass. Nicky burst into tears, but the others stayed still, too impressed to say anything else. They knew it was a good deal, and even Wymack surrendered to the evidence.

“But I’ll come back when I finish,” Neil said, ignoring how weak his voice sounded. “Maybe it will be over in time to start the next season.”

“Or you might die in the process. Or you might be caught by the FBI and get locked up for the rest of your sad life. Sounds like a plan. Have fun”

It was Andrew. After that, he left the room in tense silence. The other Foxes tried to blur his words with ones of encouragement, but Neil knew they shared Andrew’s point of view. And, to be honest, Nicky’s tears didn’t inspire confidence.

“When do you have to leave?” asked Allison.

Ichirou had been clear about this point.

“Tonight.”

 

 

When he left the building with his old duffel, Andrew was waiting for him.

Neil had agreed that Wymack would drive him to the airport, but the coach was nowhere in sight, so Neil supposed that Andrew would be the one to take him there. In his ears the sounds of goodbyes and tears were still ringing, so the silent treatment with which Andrew was punishing him was good for him. At least the first few minutes. Then it turned to a nightmare, and he had to stop it:

“Are you going to keep quiet?”

“Are you going to keep lying?”

That was like a punch in the face, and something inside him started feeling rotten. The knot in his throat didn’t let him answer right, so he drowned in silence again. But as they were getting closer to the airport, he was also getting more and more nervous and desperate.

“Look, I…”

“ _No_.”

“I didn’t want this. I didn’t. But it was the only thing that could keep me alive, and I was in no position to refuse a deal from Ichirou.”

Andrew didn’t change his bored face at all, and that got on Neil’s nerves. In a few minutes he would be gone, and he couldn’t think of a worse fate than having to leave him without a proper goodbye.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to pass my last days as if they were a funeral.”

“You are the one to call them your _last days_.”

He just didn’t know how to get away from Andrew’s cold hate. His brain ached, and the memory of Riko’s skull exploding before his eyes flooded his body for a long moment. Even if he definitely enjoyed taking away his life, it wasn’t a pleasurable experience. He looked at his hands, expecting them to be stained in blood. They were not.

“I’m going to come back.”

“Stop lying.”

“I’m going to come back!”

This time Andrew didn’t even bother to answer, and then Neil remembered something. Slowly, like he was doing it in a dream and not before abandoning Neil Josten for who knew how long, he took the bunch of keys Andrew had given him and left them on the dashboard. He wasn’t going to need them in a while. He heard him swallowing. Just after, he peeled off his armbands and put them on top of the keys, hiding them from view.

“Andrew…”

“So what, do you have some list of naughty boys like Santa Claus?” asked Andrew, dragging his gaze from the armbands to the road.

“In fact…”

“Oh!”

“Proust is on it.”

“ _Fuck you_.”

Those words were the first sign of feelings he got from Andrew. Those words were standing alone on a beach watching how the sea withdraws into itself before the tsunami comes and drowns you. He waited for the tsunami, already drowning in his silence.

“Ichirou has sentenced you to die,” he finally said. “He knows you’ve been targeted by the FBI, they keep an eye on you. At the first sign you are cleaning some-”

“I know.” Neil interrupted him. “But I’ll figure it out. I’m thinking about giving some names to the FBI so they’ll think I’m trying to help. But there are a lot of names…”

“How many?”

Neil sighed.

“A long, long list of naughty boys.”

“How long?”

Neil didn’t want to think about it. However, Andrew was _demanding_ information, and answering his questions was a lot better than fighting the absence of them. It was late at night, the road was dark and the orange streetlights outside the Maserati outlined Andrew’s silhouette in a golden line. Under that light, his lashes were made of gold and his eyes looked like volcanic lava. Neil wondered how a force of nature such as Andrew could be locked inside a human body like his.

“Maybe a couple of years.”

And they were back to silence. They reached the airport sooner than Neil expected, and he thought about a year ago, when he was waiting to be picked up by Aaron, but a disguised Andrew appeared. Then he was a damaged child, afraid of living, afraid of dying, afraid of himself and his own family, and even so, Neil would give everything to relive all of it again. He didn’t want to leave the only place where he had been happy. He didn’t want to leave Andrew nor the Foxes. He didn’t want to leave Neil Josten.

Neil opened the door and got outside. He felt as if his heart had been trapped in the passenger seat and he was now not only cold but empty inside. When he turned around to watch Andrew for the last time, he was looking back at him too. His lava eyes were full of words that wouldn’t get out of his mouth. That’s why Neil had to talk instead:

“I’ll come back. I know how important promises are to you, so take it as one.”

“I don’t believe in cheap promises.”

Neil ignored him, and kept talking:

“And when I’m finished, I’ll call you. I don’t expect you to be waiting for so long, but at least I hope you can drive me back home.”

Neil supposed that was the last straw, because Andrew’s face twisted into something dark and scary, and he stepped aside a bit.

“I won’t wait for anything or anyone, you fuck. Don’t think you have privileges because I blew you once.”

Neil laughed, and Andrew stretched to close the car door in his face with a heavy slam. He waited a bit longer until Andrew lowered the window, and he leaned on it.

“I’ll try to be fast.” He thought twice before adding a weak “I’ll miss you.”

“Just hurry up.”

No kisses, no goodbyes. Andrew rolled the window up and Neil stepped back. Suddenly, he was alone in the parking lot, and, once again, alone in his path. He was going to miss his Foxes so bad, and it would hurt, and it would feel like dying, he knew that. He didn’t think for a moment it was going to be easy.

But when Nathaniel Wesninski walked through the doors of the airport he didn’t look back to the parking lot where he had left Neil Josten.

 

 

 

 


	2. Doctor Proust.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel finds Proust.
> 
> The Foxes get to do something without hurting anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for keep reading this! And again thanks to my personal translator.
> 
> While writing this fic this was my playlist (kinda):
> 
>  **Control** \- _Halsey_  
>  **In the name of Love** \- _Martin Garrix & Bebe Rexha_  
>  **Closer (ft. Halsey)** - _The Chainsmokers_  
>  **This is Gospel** \- _P!atD_  
>  **Monster** \- _Paramore_

Overcoming his addiction to the Foxes hadn’t been easy, and even a year after his last goodbye he could still feel shattered glass from his shared memories inside his ribcage.

The first three months had been like hell, buried in the sheets of impersonal hotel beds that weren’t right, because they weren’t his. He couldn’t stop watching the news, his eyes rabid every time he stood in front of a kiosk burning in orange color from all the photographs of his teammates. No. Not his teammates. Josten’s teammates. He had felt lost in every sense of the word.

But now he was fine. Just like always. He’d reconciled himself with his feelings, this never ending longing for coming back, as day after day he was becoming more and more at peace with his new (original) identity. Nathaniel Wesninski was the right arm of the FBI and also the left arm of the new Moriyama lord, and it has been more than difficult to balance both forces, giving names to the FBI but corpses to Ichirou.

At least he wasn’t like his father. He’d bought a gun and he shot it without warning, without torturing his victims. He thought it was fair, as his face had suffered enough of it without also wearing it as a style of murdering.

But, ah, how difficult it was remembering that when he finally found Proust.

Because it was kind of funny, how good Nathaniel was at his job. He had been on the run for eight years, he knew all the wiles, all the lies, all the resources. It was easy for him to find them, but the trick was deciding if the victim was going to be for the Moriyamas or for the FBI, and that was why he was taking so long to come back to be Neil Josten. He had to wait a month between murders in order to not get caught, like he was a werewolf and he could only be dangerous on full moon.

However, it was easy for him to decide that Doctor Proust was going to be for the Moriyamas. Maybe it was sentimental, more like a ghost of a sick feeling that Neil had left inside him, or maybe it was because even Nathaniel Wesninski had despised him.

He knew he was going to enjoy killing him while he passed through the wide doors of the small but private hospital.

“Hello,” he said to the receptionist, a cute little woman who looked like she had never been outside her village full of cow shit. “I have an appointment with Doctor Peverel.”

When she looked up at him, at his scars, he could almost _feel_ her shiver. Scars usually got him more trouble than anything else, but at a psychiatric center, they were open doors. Of course a scarred kid would want help. Poor child, tortured almost to death. Poor kid with cold blue eyes and almost perfect straight teeth.

“Doctor Peverel…?” she frowned, looking down at her papers. “I’m sorry, what’s your name? He doesn’t have any appointments today.”

“Oh,” he said, pretending to be kind of dizzy, using the accent of the region to gain extra trust. “Maybe… maybe I got the day wrong. I’m so sorry...”

“There’s no need to apologize, kid,” she answered, kind and soft, with a little smile that Nathaniel knew was compassion. “Do you need… do you need to see him now?”

“If… is he here? That would be great.”

He added the exact amount of weakness in his tone, and he touched the burned scar on his face to put on a show. He would make an excellent actor.

“What’s your name? I’ll notify him your presence.”

“Andrew Minyard.”

She nodded, smiling like an angel, and left. He waited still and tense, touching again and again the pointy edge of the knife inside his pocket. There was no need to be civil with him. There was absolutely no need.

“He’s seeing you now. Hope it’ll help, he seems surprised.”

Nathaniel didn’t even look at her, hiding a twisted smile and following her around the insides of the building. It was small, but made of concrete, so it was going to be easy for him to make noises without being heard. Or, at least, they would think the sound came from a violent breakdown from the scarred kid. Because, in the end, all abused children become abusers too. Of course.

He expected him to be seated on his doctor chair, sweating or dying, but the man called Peverel in this state, Proust to the public, was standing still while searching something on his laptop. He closed the door after him in silence, trying _too hard_ to keep the wrath aside. Nathaniel Wesninski was not a savage.

“Oh. You’re not Andrew,” he finally said, and he looked really disenchanted. His lungs inside him _burned_. “So sad. I was looking for some great memories I have in my computer to remember them together.”

“Will watching them be your dying wish? You’ll no longer be alive in a few minutes.”

“Is that so?” he nearly laughed.

Finally he looked at Nathaniel, and he was surprised by how young Proust looked, his own throat sticky with acid. He was a skinny man, eyes and hair slate black, his jaw slightly prominent, like his tooth lines didn’t match each other. In his pupils he could see the same obsessive craziness that was Riko’s top characteristic, and he knew then why Proust would have accepted payment for abusing Andrew.

“Ah, you’re the split-face who’s making the purge for Lord Moriyama, and also the Josten kid Andrew talked so much about, am I wrong?”

Nathaniel wished he had brought his gun with him. Proust’s venomous words were reaching that point inside his brain where Neil Josten slept, and he was waking him up. And Nathaniel needed to keep himself cold. Even so, he didn’t answer back, crossing the room to sit in front of him, thinking about how to slide his knife through his throat. The easy way was doing it by surprise, or maybe destroying his face first with his hands.

“Here it is,” he smiled, and he looked so fond of himself Nathaniel almost felt nauseated. “You can hear but not watch, this is only between Riko, Andrew and I.”

The laptop started to exude strange sounds, and Nathaniel took a little longer than expected to recognize the sound of a laugh. It was Andrew’s laugh, but not in a way he had ever heard him. It was mixed with a strangled whine and long periods of heavy silence, breath finally being taken and the cycle starting again. He could almost feel Andrew’s bitter tears and the choking sensation of being tickled for so long you feel like you are dying.

“A very sensitive body, Andrew has. I got that tickle-trick from Drake, you know?”

Nathaniel’s brain detonated like a bomb, and the next thing he knew was that he was climbing the table and capturing Proust’s neck between his hands, pressing hard enough to choke him. The impact dragged them to the ground, and Nathaniel hit Proust’s head against the hard and cold floor. He felt as if he was on fire, his soul burning like the dashboard lighter charring his face more than a year ago. It was the same pain, the same desperation, the same rage. He could see all the colors Proust’s face was changing into while he still heard Andrew’s agonized noises from the computer, pure torture ringing in his ears.

“I’m going to kill you.” He spat the words into his face. “I’m going to kill you and I’m going to _eat_ every gory piece of you. And when I’m sick of your flesh I’ll throw the rest to the dogs.”

He meant it. Because he was his father’s son, and revenge was not only physical, but psychological.

“I don’t think so,” the doctor managed to say, with an enormous smile. Nathaniel couldn’t even imagine seeing that smile again and again and again.

Suddenly, he felt a piercing pain, and he dragged his gaze off Proust to watch his own arm. There was a syringe buried in his skin, and Proust was pushing the clear liquid inside his veins. The effect was almost as fast as life, and Nathaniel’s fingers instantly lost his prey. He roared like a beast, watching helplessly how Proust pushed his hands away in a violent movement and spotting a strange mist entangling his brain. Everything went colorless, faded colors from his eyes, and he wondered if Proust had blinded him. He saw his own fingers tremble.

“What the f…?”

Proust sat up, straddling him, the syringe still piercing him. He could still move, but desperately slow, and he knew he had fallen right into the trap.

“Predictable.”

 _I’m not_ , he tried to say, because Andrew said he wasn’t, and Andrew had never lied to him. To Neil, at least. His brain had disconnected from reality, leaving him hopeless.

“I would have preferred the twin, you know, but sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you get. Even better like this. No one cares if you disappear, and the ones who do don’t expect you to go back for a few more years.”

Proust hooked two fingers inside Nathaniel’s numb mouth, forcing him to open it, but he just stared at it like it was the door to paradise.

“We are gonna have so much fun together, Neil.”

Hearing his true? false? name triggered him. Whatever that _him_ was.

Nathaniel won this time.

As a Wesninski, his soulmate would always be a razor, and he responded as he had always known he would one day, putting his hand inside his pocket with his last strength and taking out his true love. His fingers were clumsy, but the blade drew a second red smile perfectly in Proust’s throat.

He would never forget the look in Proust’s eyes.

And, for a brief second, he understood his father.

Almost-boiling blood rained over his face and throat in a slow thick line, drawing shapeless forms all above his skin, his clothes. His mind was still fighting the venom Proust had injected in his veins, and the blood seemed more black than crimson through his poisoned eyes. It was as sticky as he expected it to be, though.

He pushed the corpse aside, trying to breathe and escape from there, but just staying a few more minutes and sleeping was more than tempting. He knew it was exactly what the drug wanted him to do, but he couldn’t afford to be caught like this.

 

_hey u said only 1 text per year so all the foxes agreed on txting u today! have fun reading all those losers. i miss u so so much so im wasting my message to keep u up to date. So Matt and Dan…_

 

Nathaniel was confused and concussed, coming back to the receptionist with his phone buzzing in his hands. Were they sending him messages for some kind of goodbye-anniversary? Really? Nicky’s message was more than 50 lines, but he remembered that Neil didn’t put restraints on the length of the messages he could receive. He just warned them that Ichirou didn’t want him to be Neil Josten until the purge was finished, but maybe they could pretend they’d sent that message to the wrong number. Just once a year.

Now he was just a bloodstained mess walking down the hall, and when the woman spotted him she cried out loud, making his ears feel like they were crumbling. Thank you, ma’am.

“Please…” and he wasn’t acting to get his voice weak. “Call the police. He tried to kill me.”

She obeyed, and finally his body surrendered to the drug.

 

 

 

 

_2 months ago two junkies were trying to get autographs from us (me) and they asked about our wesninski pet and I had to break their noses to avoid a murder from ur little monster. I took a bunch of selfies at the spring banquet because even YOU could appreciate my all black outfit (black eye included). Im gonna be on cover for VOGUE next week, they liked “my fierce attitude” BUY it. Btw kick those asses faster_

 

When he woke up, he was handcuffed to a hospital bed, and he recognized Agent Browning staring out the window to the sunset.

“Not again,” he mumbled, but the officer turned to him with an annoyed gesture.

“Josten,” the name almost physically hurt him. “It wasn’t lucky enough of you to get caught once so you had to do it _twice_?”

“I’m not getting caught on anything,” he answered, looking at the soft bandage that hid the minimal red point where the syringe was stabbed. “I was following him for you.”

“Well, coming into his office pretending to be Andrew Minyard is not exactly the definition of following someone.”

“I wanted to see him.”

Agent Browning shook his head slowly, more like pitying him than accusing him. Since the first day Nathaniel became his mole, both of them knew it was going to be a difficult relationship. They didn’t trust each other a bit (Nathaniel found this kind of funny, as Browning was in the right).

“No. You wanted to kill him. We saw the files in his computer.”

“Get rid of those,” he ordered like he was his superior. Sometimes Nathaniel believed everyone would listen.

“We can’t. They are the only incriminating evidence to charge him instead of you.”

“Oh.” Nathaniel grinned. “Are you covering me?”

“I don’t know. Did you kill him on purpose? You were armed, for fuck’s sake.”

“I was defending _myself_.”

“More like _I was defending my friend_. Sounds almost the same but there’s a difference. One is murder and the other is not.”

Nathaniel didn’t answer this time. He tipped his head a few millimeters to his left side, a gesture of Andrew’s that he had internalized without realizing it. It worked with his victims, the fake boredom. Of course Browning wasn’t on his list, but it also worked on him.

“Why did you leave the Foxes, Josten?” he asked, a sigh escaping. “After all the fight you put up to stay by his side… I was suspicious.”

“I wanted to help. I already told you.” Nathaniel didn’t like to repeat things all over again. “I couldn’t afford to have my friends get hurt by the leftovers of my father’s men. I’ll go back when I finish.”

“And when will that be?”

Nathaniel shrugged, apathetic.

“Maybe never.”

He looked for his phone inside his pockets but he didn’t find it. Nathaniel dragged his gaze to the agent, teeth clenched so hard they might crumble.

“Give it back.”

“It won’t stop buzzing. We checked the messages to clear the situation, but…”

“Do I look like I care? Give it back. Right now. Or I won’t tell you any names ever again, even if I get death warrant.”

He wanted his friend’s messages. He wanted them now, because Proust’s face while dying was making him want to puke, and even if it felt like revenge, it also felt disgusting. He would never kill again in any other way than involving bullets. He needed to remember who he was, under all of this cold murdering scene.

“Okay,” Browning finally said, and Nathaniel wasn’t paying attention enough to notice he had been thinking about it for longer than it seemed.

His mind went blank until his cellphone was handed to him. Nathaniel caught it like it was air after drowning, and he went through the messages without really reading them. He was looking for a very specific contact.

There was no message from Andrew.

Nathaniel didn’t care about him. He just didn’t care, that’s why he just swallowed and went for Nicky’s bible. It was like reading those chick magazines full of too much neon pink and too much bare skin. He wrote about the new Foxes, Dan and Matt moving in together after Dan’s graduation, Aaron and Katelyn’s vacation to somewhere so badly written he couldn’t even read it. Allison’s fight. Renée’s social projects. Even Jean’s progress with Jeremy’s team. Still nothing about Andrew.

He was afraid he could break, reading all of this while keeping a straight face for Browning. It was torture. He didn’t even notice Browning leave the room or when he came back.

“Everything’s settled, you’re clean.”

“Thank you,” he said, without meaning it.

Silence. Fake freedom. Sunset.

“You know,” Browning sighed while he was driving Nathaniel to a cheap hotel near to the psychiatric center, ”I get you. I have a daughter.”

“What’s your daughter have to do with the Butcher’s son?”

“Not the Butcher’s son. Neil Josten.”

 _Stop_.

“I’d also do anything to protect her. That’s why I chose this job, and that’s the reason why I can’t let myself miss a single name on your list. You’re still free because I love my daughter.”

That was the first time Nathaniel felt guilty. Empathy was not a trait of the Wesninski family, but he couldn’t help but imagine a little girl being no more than a hostage against the officer. Maybe the Moriyamas would kill her one day, and he would be responsible.

But he was Nathaniel Wesninski, and he was loyal to the family first.

 

 

 

 

_Wymack here. Not good with big words you know. But Dan’s gone and I had to name Kevin captain. Imagine the terror. I hope the real captain can come back before my team all drown in depression._

 

Witness Protection Program flats were a piece of new but hollow and impersonal space, just like he was. He had agreed not so long ago to be handed the keys to a few ones dispersed across the United States, as the FBI knew he was in constant movement all around the country in search of his father’s (Riko’s) men. They knew it was better for them to let him wander because, as unpredictable as Neil Josten was, he always came back with a couple more names.

Nathaniel was buried inside the duvet cover of the bed (not really feeling like it was his bed), so tight and warm around him and his shoulders that he felt like he was inside a burrow. Inside a foxhole. He was trying to sleep away the memories, but it was difficult while his cellphone kept buzzing. Nathaniel didn’t read all the messages. He wouldn’t have any more texts for a year, and he wanted to ration them. Besides, the fact that Andrew hadn’t sent him anything was a fresh scratch inside. Even Katelyn had sent him a brief “ _kisses!_ ” text with a cute flowery emoticon. Even Aaron had sent him a “ _u dead?_ ”. Annoying. Aaron knew he couldn’t reply back.

He wanted to come back. He wanted to end this treasure quest right now and run with his own feet to the court. Playing again, living again, loving again. The messages had been a hard relapse that left him trembling and longing for more. The Foxes truly were a drug for his aching body.

 _Just one more_ , he said to himself, like a real life junkie. The comparison, that word, shot a bullet of memories that left him shocked while he cradled the device in his hands. What an ugly mess he was.

The light of the screen blinded him and Nathaniel practically closed his eyes, pressing the arrow button to get through the inbox, evaluating the names he was seeing on the screen to decide which one of them would say something that finally let him sleep. Kevin’s was discarded. He would read it when he was thinking about Exy. Maybe Dan’s. The Foxes’ captain would always be the light at the end of the tunnel… but Matt wrote longer. Or he could reread the one from Nicky, with so much information he hadn’t even finished digesting it yet. What if he answered one of them? No, no, he couldn’t do that. It was beyond risky. Now he could be sending messages and the next thing he would be visiting them, and he couldn’t afford to lose control.

He was on the edge of surrender when the phone buzzed, and the name that appeared on the screen felt like lightning reaching the hollow mess left inside his ribcage.

Andrew.

Nathaniel bought himself some time by taking a deep, deep breath. His fingers were shaky when he pressed the open button, tense as a violin string:

 

_200%_

 

A sad laugh broke free from his throat, and the urge to reply burned the tips of his fingers. The note was short and sharp, just like Andrew himself, but just those four characters were enough to lull him to sleep, healing the tremor and sliding in like liquid warm until the last vein through his body.


	3. Nathaniel Wesninski

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been two years since Ichirou Moriyama imposed him the purge, and now it's finally done.
> 
> It's time to go home.
> 
> But he doesn't want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end. It has been brief but intense, and I have to thank all of you for giving this shot a try, leaving kudos or comments and to everyone who rebloged the original post that I posted on tumblr. And, of course, to the people who came to me and said that I should write a fic. 
> 
> I'd like to keep writing AFTG fics, but it's an exhausting process and I don't want to enslave [Kit](http://metaphoricallytheworst.tumblr.com/) forever. A special thanks for Kit, the one who made this shot posible by turning my dramatic Spanglish into sleek (and correct) English.
> 
> Thanks you all! And now, [wanna chat?](http://lunnvic.tumblr.com/)

 

 

 

 

_Sunrise, Abram, death._

He had always thought Andrew chose those words randomly. But he’d been replaying in his head every single word that the twin had said to him, and day after day he came to realize he was wrong. Even from the beginning, Andrew was real. He was so real that Neil Josten at his side looked like a flat character of a poorly written book.

“Sunrise, Abram, death” was meant to illustrate the cycle of life. Born like the sun every morning, getting to be your real self, dying in peace.

At least that is what Nathaniel Wesninski thought after two years without him.

Now he looked at his reflection with a bored stare. Scars and freckles battled against each other to be the protagonist of his face, but he knew the winner was the ghostly glow behind his eyes. Death in his hands was reflected in the never ending azure color of the Wesninski family. He no longer waited to be free, numbed by the time and the lives that his name had taken with him.

Nathaniel Wesninski was all that he could be now.

Neil Josten? A sweet dream long ago disintegrated inside his brain.

A sleek car appeared just behind him, and he stepped away from the last corpse. It was the last name on his list of naughty boys, but she was a woman. Her death stare was fiercer than his entire living presence.

“Get in. Lord Moriyama requires your presence.”

How fast the murder world was. Nathaniel didn’t say anything as he got in the car. The driver offered him a towel in silence, and the young killer made his bloodstained sneakers as white as possible. He’d pretended to go for a run, gun pressed between his hipbone and the elastic line of the boxers. She was really running. It had been so easy just passing her and shooting the gun… Killing was so easy, so reassuring, so absent-minded, he couldn’t see himself doing anything else.

Exy? A sweet dream long ago disintegrated inside his bones.

The ride lasted hours, and Nathaniel thought about the inconvenience of having to go back to the witness protection flat for his clothes. Or, who knows, maybe Ichirou was going to kill him after all. Because being set free to be Neil Josten was more a nightmare than a dream. He just didn’t know how to go back to that pure creature he was, so full of feelings, so eager to love.

It was weird to think how Nathaniel Wesninski had ended up _eating_ Neil Josten.

“Your task is finished.”

He didn’t even remember leaving the car and getting into the enormous hotel. They had an event room for them alone, and Nathaniel couldn’t care less. He hoped Ichirou was fast.

“You’ve served me well, Nathaniel. I’m surprised, after all, how you managed to not get caught by the FBI.”

“Thank you.”

Ichirou smiled, looking at him with something terrible behind his eyes. Nathaniel knew he was realizing that the purge had rotted him to the core, erasing the only thing he had ever wanted.

“Remember. You have to make the cut or we’ll see each other again.”

“My lord,” Nathaniel interrupted, “I have a new proposal that could be…”

“No.”

He frowned, confused. What did that no mean? He didn’t even get to say a word.

“No, _Neil Josten,_ ” and it sounded like death sentence. “You could have been what you are now long ago, and it could have worked. But you are still famous, and the FBI thinks you are their lucky pet. Exy was your destiny all along, and you won’t escape from it any longer.”

“But…”

“If you break this deal, I’ll assume that Day and Moreau share your view, and they’ll be executed too.”

Nathaniel didn’t expect his words to have so much impact inside. He could remember the chess piece on Kevin’s cheek, exactly where his burned skin corrupted his face, and knowing that those already so hurt by the Moriyamas could be touched again by his fault was enough for him to duck his head. His hands longed for a racquet and also for a gun. He didn’t want to come back yet. He wasn’t ready.

After all the things he had done, he couldn’t see himself being a Fox again. They were derailed trains, not a kamikaze car purposely driving into oncoming traffic.

“I see.”

Nathaniel didn’t answer this time either.

“Maybe you could be a Raven, after all.”

 

 

 

Nicky told him _years_ after what had happened in the club.

Even if the guy tended to tell tales in an exaggerated way, Nathaniel could imagine it perfectly. The Eden’s lights, people drinking like it was the only way to live another day, a night after the last match of the season.

The Foxes had won their second cup, and all of them had reunited again to celebrate it. Even the girls had taken a flight to be with them. Of course they all knew someone was missing, but the pain went numb long ago and now it was just a healed wound under a band aid that no one wanted to rip yet. Until he came back.

Kevin was drinking as if it was his last night on Earth (as always), but part of his mind was on the true captain that was dealing with the dirty work. He knew that every move Neil made was connected to his life, so if he was still alive that meant Neil was, too. Now that he was free to be Court, to be the greatest Exy player in the world, he just could not think about the person who made that possible.

He took another shot in his name but told no one.

But Nicky was watching, and two years of Kevin finally _living_ and Nicky observing the monster group carefully every step of the way made him realize what was happening.

He had seen how they’d changed. How Aaron never lost that ugly spine of his, but instead he became softer, relaxed, human, with Katelyn by his side. The girl complimented him in a way Nicky only understood when he caught them in a room watching some Disney movie. How Matt slowly started to grow into being part of the group after the girls graduated, seeing in his eyes the same comprehension of day after day of dealing with the twins and Kevin.

And Andrew.

Nicky turned around to find him, as he wasn’t with them. He finally found him at the end of the club bar, talking with Roland while the bartender mixed some drinks. It seemed like Roland was trying to flirt with him again, but Andrew was ignoring his creative attempts.

Andrew didn’t change, not so much. After Neil was gone, there was the impression that his cousin had taken two steps back. He reverted back again to the murderous looks, the impossible behavior and the threats to the team safety. Even worse, Nicky thought he did it because he was looking for some kind of reaction. Nicky just didn’t know if the reaction was aimed for himself or for someone else. But with Aaron spending more time with Katelyn and Kevin being free and fearless, Andrew had lost every _distraction_. And even if Matt and Nicky tried to replace them somehow, the goalkeeper kept himself inaccessible. As it always had been.

Nicky took a few steps in his direction. Roland was finishing preparing their drinks and Andrew couldn’t take all the glasses to them. In that moment, the twin grabbed his phone from his pocket, apparently buzzing, and gazed down at the screen.

Andrew tensed so hard it was almost a flinch, and Nicky stopped dead on his way to him. His face was still blank, with that bored look that Nicky hated so much, but his knuckles were white around the phone. Nicky didn’t move, just watching as Andrew flipped open the phone and put it against his ear.

After a few seconds, Andrew hung up the phone and stood up, rigid, still. Even if nothing in his face, in his eyes, betrayed him, Nicky knew better. His shoulders were tense, and in his cheeks there was a shadow that pointed out exactly how his teeth pressed against each other like they wanted to splinter themselves. Something had happened, and Nicky was terrified about the thing that had made Andrew resistant to react.

Andrew finally moved to the exit, his steps fast and secure. He passed by his side without saying anything, but Nicky had to ask:

“Hey! Where are you going?”

He felt the Foxes turning towards them, alerted by his high pitched question, but Andrew didn’t slow down. His answer was enough for him, it seemed.

“This fucker.”

Nicky turned to the rest of the team, confused. Their faces reflected his own startled expression, just trying to decode what Andrew meant.

Suddenly, Matt’s eyes shone like a supernova, and he dragged his hands to hide his face in a weird shaking movement. Dan surrounded his enormous shoulders with her arm, as lost as the rest, touching the shiver that was running through Matt’s body.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Matt finally set himself free, and from the expression on his face there was no doubt about what he was going to say. Nicky was crying before Matt’s lips formed the name:

“Neil.”

The freshmen didn’t understand the joy, the screaming, the way that the Foxes held each other, laughing, the lost control. The never ending tears that menaced to drown inside their drinks, the alcohol no longer necessary to make them feel high.

No one noticed that Andrew wasn’t there anymore.

Neil Josten had come back, and never had they felt so complete.

 

 

 

“Come and get me from the airport.”

He didn’t answer, but he could hear the loud music, the glasses tinkling against each other, at the other end of the line. Nathaniel just waited and then the connection was shut. It wasn’t the first time Andrew had done something like this to him, so he walked to the enormous parking lot, the orange streetlights reminding him of the last time they were there. He was more than nervous: he was terrified. Bare hands and still with the sport clothes he was wearing hours before taking the plane, he hadn’t even gone back to take his belongings from the witness protection flat.

And it was logical, because he wasn’t staying there.

He wanted the Foxes to know the news before anyone else.

He craved to see Andrew.

So when the Maserati appeared at the end of the road, getting close to him, Nathaniel was a wonder of shivers and heartbeats, a distorted blur of the person he was meant to be tonight. The sensation was even worse when Andrew got out of the car and circled the Maserati to lean his back against the sleek door of it, hands inside his pockets and an unaffected look in his golden eyes.

 _God_.

God how he had missed him.

They kept the silence like a barricade between them, trying to find each other’s new selves. Andrew didn’t look like he had changed at all, still with those armbands and the undying detached attitude. But in his shoulders, in his eyes, there was something else, a prelude of something more. Nathaniel wondered what Andrew was seeing in him. He was expected to start talking, he realized.

“So… hey.”

“Hey.”

It was an awkward situation. Andrew hadn’t opened the door for him to get inside, so he must know something was wrong. Was he so obvious? He felt himself falling apart bit by bit, darkness and pain dripping between the cracks.

“I came to see you.”

Silence.

“But you’re not staying.”

Nathaniel shook his head in confirmation. Andrew had parked so close to him that he could discern every lock of blonde hair, his Adam’s apple going up and down when he swallowed, even his clear lashes. He didn’t want to think about leaving him again, but he had to. Because Andrew was waiting for someone who no longer existed.

“No.”

Andrew nodded, and started to move back around the car.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?”

He opened the door:

“I won’t listen to more lies from your mouth. I don’t want to know. You’re almost dead to us, anyway.”

That hurt more than he could even understand, feeling his words like a poison that melted his heart and left it dripping through his ribcage. He opened his mouth to say something, but Andrew pointed a threatening finger at him.

“Don’t. Just. Don’t.”

“Ichirou let me come back, but I can’t. I just… can’t.”

Andrew started to get into the car, but he seemed to think twice about it, and stood still watching him. His eyes were speaking louder than his words, and Nathaniel gave him what he was asking for.

“Next spring I’m going to play for the Ravens. The contract is not signed yet but I wanted you to know before the press announcement.”

“Did Ichirou force you to be a Raven?”

 _Oh_.

“No.”

“Then why?”

Nathaniel dragged his gaze away from him, no longer strong enough to fight the look in his eyes. He had been thinking about what to say for months, but he hadn’t taking into consideration the devastating effect Andrew had always had over him. Nathaniel felt his hands trembling and hid them inside his pockets. He remembered a time when he had to hide them to not touch him. And he wanted to touch him again with a force of a thousand volcanoes.

But Andrew? A sweet dream long ago disintegrated inside his heart.

“I won’t ask again. Why.”

Nathaniel tried to put his thoughts in order, looking up at him. The goalkeeper was once more rested on the car in a relaxed way, as if the conversation wasn’t really happening. Again, like he didn’t care at all.

“I feel…” he started, lost. “That I don’t belong to the Foxes anymore.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I don’t know how to be Neil Josten again. I’m a Wesninski, and the things that I have done in these two years won’t let me come back to him. I’m too rotten now. I’ve exterminated… entire families. Children, Andrew. I just…”

He didn’t react. Nathaniel reacted for him instead, feeling how his body was on the edge of breaking while trying to find more words that echoed how lost he was in Nathaniel Wesninski.

“Summarize it,” he cut in, “I don’t have time to hear you rambling.”

Andrew looked at him with an intensity that could burn him up to the embers.

“I don’t remember Neil Josten.”

“I do.”

The silence ate them alive, and Nathaniel tried to breathe.

“What…?”

“I do,” he repeated. “I remember him perfectly.”

Nathaniel ducked his head, weak to the bone. He didn’t know how to deal with an Andrew that wouldn’t let him go. In his mind, this was going to be so easy. This was going to be painful, but short. He dragged a hand to hide his face behind it, and heard his steps towards him. He was so close he felt his body heat in front of him.

“I told you to stay once,” he heard him say, his words under his skin. “And I think once is enough. You are the only one doing this to yourself.”

“I don’t _deserve_ this.”

I don’t deserve _you_ , he wanted to add, but the words were spiders running through his throat and he felt that if he spoke more than a few words they would escape between his lips and leave him hollow.

“No one would judge you for slaughtering a few men. Half of the team are murderers too.”

“It’s not the same.”

Andrew pulled his hand away from his face in a vicious movement, looking for his eyes. Nathaniel dragged his gaze up to him, feeling his brief touch on his wrist like an electric shock. He wanted to feel it until his end.

“Don’t you dare make me _beg,_ ” he roared, a dark storm with a clear skin. “Because I swear to God I won’t do it, and it’s selfish to think this is only about you.”

 _This_. So there was still a “this”. Oxygen started to fill his lungs in a different way, as if he was finally letting it in, and the tension slid down his shoulders, leaving him helpless and dizzy. Nathaniel wanted to fight the warm sensation that was anchoring him to this place, drowning him to the core. Drowning Nathaniel Wesninski.

Because Andrew wanted to say “stay”, wanted to say “please”, but both of them knew that those words would never touch his lips. And he wanted to touch his lips instead of them.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself if I stay,” he finally whispered, and Andrew was so close he felt how the sound crashed against his cheekbones.

“Well, that’s a Fox thing. I’m surprised you also forgot that.”

His voice sounded so apathetic that it seemed almost sarcastic. Andrew tipped his head to one side, looking at him right in the eyes with a raised eyebrow, waiting for something else.

“The only thing I never forgot was you.”

And there it was. He heard himself saying “yes” even before Andrew had finished the question, and the warm welcome of his lips was the tsunami he had been awaiting for more than two years. The kiss was like a force of nature, cleaning his bloodstained hands, pulling out the memories, the guilt, the self-hate. The touch of his hand was volcanic lava, melting the skin of the fingers clawed in his neck. Melting every thought about leaving, about continuing to run.

Melting everything he thought he knew about himself.

He was amazed by how Andrew was capable of killing him and make him be reborn in just one kiss, closing his eyes as a Nathaniel Wesninski and opening them as a weak and trembling Neil Josten. Breathing unsteadily, Neil cupped his face between his hands without really touching him, and watched how Andrew moved to rest his face in them, eyes closed for a moment.

“I’ve missed you so much it felt like dying,” he said against his lips, half kissing half whispering.

“ _Shut up,_ ” answered Andrew, stepping back from him, but Neil caught a glimpse of a smirk. “They want to see you. Nicky was already crying when I left Eden’s.”

“I need to go back to Florida to get my things.”

“Leave it for tomorrow and I’ll go with you.”

Neil didn’t fight the goofiest of the smiles, finally getting in the car. He enjoyed the solitude inside the Maserati, trying to get used to this body, to this name, before Andrew was by his side. He looked at him with an undying intensity, becoming aware of the life that was waiting for them. The orange streetlights highlighting his body took him back to two years before taking a plane, and he was glad the nightmare was over.

“Babysitting me, Andrew?”

“You have the nasty habit of disappearing.”

He leaned in to kiss him again while he turned the engine on. Andrew responded to the kiss briefly, but then he cut the kiss short in a violent movement. Neil took the hint and sat still:

“Not until…?”

“Not until you have signed the contract with the Foxes. I know better.”

Neil laughed, lost in the bubbly feeling of belonging somewhere. He was at peace with the corpse of Nathaniel, who had bought him his freedom, and eager to be the person he’d chosen to be. He just couldn’t wait to live, to play, to love. And to do it knowing that he had chosen this path.

Neil Josten didn’t look back to the parking lot where he had left Nathaniel Wesninski.

He was complete.

  
  



End file.
